My Own Backyard
by Lovely Rita Girl
Summary: Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they’ve discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is. Case fic.
1. Chapter 1

**My Own Backyard**

**Summary:** Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they've discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is.

**Legality:** I do not own anything Criminal Minds, I am just borrowing the universe and characters to tell a story.

* * *

Prologue

The desert sands clung to and insulated the day's heat even after the sun rolled behind the distant hills and the sky faded to dark, lit only by the glow of the white moon.

She stepped tentatively on the soft ground, feeling the warmth of the sand contrast the cold breeze on her wet nose. The smell of food alerted her and she shared a glance with her partner. Together they navigated the hill of a sand dune and beside the bushes lay a red fire that was slowly cooling into coals. A human girl sat hunched in a chair and the two froze. The breeze flitted past her nostrils again, and carried the scent of the human's food, the human's skin, the human's hair, the human's clothes, and the human's death.

The two coyotes crept through the bushes then and nipped up the bits of hot dog, burned by the dying fire, the faint glow of which illuminated the dead human's face. She looked like all the sleeping ones, though her face was not as serene, and she gave no breath.

A rustle in the bushes close to the horizon alerted the two dogs that a rabbit was stirring, and they began the real hunt to feed their young. They abandoned the human and let the desert take her back as eventually it takes all life back into its hot sand and cold night air, washing only the remains in the moon's white glow until the crows pick even those apart.

Such is the way of the desert.

* * *

Chapter One

"_I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.__"_

_-_Wendell Berry

The plane rattled and dipped again, the turbulence shaking the three FBI agents harshly.

"Can we please go over what we're going to do when we get to Folsom Prison one more time?" Emily Prentiss rested the temple of her head on one hand while the other hand held to the arm of the chair tightly.

"We've already been over it twice, Em. Why do it again? Are you really that nervous about meeting him?" Derek Morgan smirked to show he chose to suffer the wrath of the plane with more grace than the other two, putting on his calm façade and allowing his body to move smoothly with the jolting cabin.

"No, I think she just wants to think about something other than the movement of the plane. Concentrating on something else will let her ignore the sea-sick feeling." Spencer Reid pushed his thick black and wire frames back up the bridge of his nose with his knuckle, as he set down his book to chase his sparkling water across the table in front of him again, fizzy bits of carbonation popping over the glass as it moved. "Plus, I kind of think it's a good idea to make sure we're thoroughly prepared. Mr. Dow is really well-known for his, uh, mind games."

"What he said." Emily added before closing her eyes again. "So, again, why am I coming along? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to go somewhere without dead people, but I thought doing interviews of the already convicted was Rossi's game?"

"Yeah, but Rossi is the one who caught Jonathon Dow," Morgan said as he caught Reid's sliding glass for him and handed to the boy genius. "Dow doesn't talk to him, or any men, actually. Something about having mother issues."

"You left that part out before. So, I'm going to get him talking, Reid's going to analyze his riddles and you're going to, what, flash him the grin that says 'I don't have to kill women to get with them'?"

"Oh, c'mon Em, is that really all you think I'm good for? It just so happens I'm also going to be intimidating him with my impressive guns."

"Wait," Spencer jumped in, "they don't let us take firearms into the interrogation room."

Morgan laughed, "Not those guns, kid."

Even Emily cracked a smile at that one, and ruffed up young Spencer's already tousled hair. She opened her mouth to speak, but before her snappy comeback could reach her lips there was a loud popping sound just outside the private airplane, followed by a lurch to the side, and the three agents fell over themselves in their chairs as the cabin bobbed and rolled.

A crackle came over the intercom followed by a soothing man's voice saying, "Ah, this is your pilot speaking. We, ah, have been experiencing a lot of turbulence, as I'm sure you've noticed, and in the grip of it seemed to, ah, caught a bird in one of the engines. We'll be doing a quick emergency landing in the desert now, so, ah, just stay calm, buckle in, and let's get this girl on the ground. Hold on, now." The speaker crackled again and went quiet; a quiet which was missed under the sounds of the rattling and shaking cabin.

All three team members were now holding on to their respective chairs, searching for the seat belts buried below the cushions, lost from lack of use. Derek Morgan held on to his chair with one strong arm, and efficiently dug for the missing belt with the other. Succeeding first at the task, he buckled his belt and leaned over to help a slightly panicked Emily Prentiss clasp her belt together, as she was fairly preoccupied with hanging on to the chair itself.

Across the table from them, Spencer Reid had let go of everything but the belts, and bounced out and back into his chair repeatedly as he used both hands to attempt fastening the puzzle of the buckle, seemingly unaffected by the plane's motions.

The sound of wind rushed past the windows as the plane tilted nose-down quickly, moving all stomachs on board to their body's throat. The plane began to rock, jolt, and thrash again as it leveled back out, before dropping again and repeating the process a few times over.

Instinctively, Prentiss reached for Morgan's hand and clasped it tightly, closing her eyes. In response, Morgan put his other hand over hers as a sign of comfort and reassurance. Reid tried taking a sip of his drink, though most of it ended up on his chin and shirt.

"Would anyone like to hear statistics on emergency landings?" Reid called to the other two over the roaring plane as he wiped his face with the back of his hand. This was a new, polite technique he was trying out, to ask before rambling off facts.

"NO!" They both yelled back.

The plane hit the ground hard and rocked and shook as the wheels searched for their balance in the desert sand. They were losing momentum quickly, trying to make the huge machine stop entirely, the force of which caused the plane to drift sideways. The wing of the plane clipped a boulder that was nestled between a couple of dry bushes, and the metal lost to the rock, getting caught at first and sending the entire plane into a drifting spin.

The spinning slowed and came to a sudden stop. The body of the plane rocked once more with the inertia before rocking back and settling into stillness. At first there was nothing, and then the sound of electrics powering off went in sync with all three agents exhaling the breath they had been collectively holding.

It was over. They were fine.

The intercom cracked again with the soothing voice behind it saying, "So, this is your pilot again. That was, ah…fun. Go ahead and unbuckle those seat belts and I'll be 'round in just a moment to manually open the cabin door." It cracked back off, and footsteps could be heard from the front of the plane.

The door leading to the cockpit opened and a tall man in khaki with a matching cowboy hat and unlit cigarette dangling from his lips stepped out. "Howdy," his now familiar soothing voice said, "I'm your pilot, Jim." Turning to his left and cranking the lever on the door he said, "And this here is your, ah, emergency exit. Let's call her 'Sandy'. We'll need to go out to find help 'cause we, ah, kinda blew the radio. C'mon, now."

He threw the door open and kicked a metal rack out of it, which unfolded and became a set of almost-stable stairs down to the ground below. He clamored down them quickly.

Spencer Reid unbuckled his belt first and hopped up to be second out. Emily Prentiss and Derek Morgan moved a bit more slowly. Once up, Morgan gestured for Emily to exit first. She moved past him whispering, "Sorry. About the hand thing, I mean."

"Hey, it's okay, Prentiss. I may not show it as much as you, but planes freak me out too. Especially when they're going down." Her flashed his perfect white grin at her.

She smiled back at him and adjusted her suit coat as she moved to step off the plane, Morgan pacing right behind her.

The four gathered around the base of the metal steps and looked around the orange ground. An insect nearby filled the air with a buzzing sound, and buzzards circled an area of plain in the middle horizon. The sky was a vibrant blue, and the sun hung low in the blue over the hills and ridges. It would be dusk soon.

Morgan reached into his pocket for his cell phone and found that it had no service. Noticing this, Prentiss did the same, with the same results.

Reid, on the other hand, had gone back into the plane and reemerged with bottles of water.

"Good thinking, kid," the pilot told him. "We got a fair bit of walking to do. I noticed a road of some sort 'bout mile and a half up that way-" (he pointed the direction the nose of the plane faced) "-so let's get walking. Don't want to be out too long after dark."

And so they began to move. The four talked little and they found themselves approaching a sand dune with some bush on the other side, a faint smell of campfire in the air. Morgan led the group into the little ditch and had to stop to catch Reid and keep him from falling over. He then hopped up to the ridge and offered a hand to Reid to pull him up to greet the bush. The pilot did the same for Prentiss.

Stepping around the small brush, the team noticed a brunette girl sitting in a lawn chair.

"Well look at that," Morgan said to them, as the pilot moved around to greet the girl to her face. "Excuse me, miss?" Morgan tried.

"That just ain't right." The pilot said to no one in particular, looking down at the girl. The team moved around to see what he saw. What he saw was a girl whose eyes were missing, her flesh scarred by wild animals, and bruises around her neck.

"We seriously can't go anywhere without dead people, can we?" Prentiss commented.

"Alright, we can't just leave this girl unfound but it's going to be dark soon," Morgan immediately stepped into his management role. "We need to get up to the road and fast, so we'll have to come back for her."

"Do you…do you want me to leave trail markings?" Reid asked.

"What; like the Boy Scouts?" Reid nodded at him. "Sure, kid. Go for it."

"Here, I'll give you a hand." The pilot's voice had resumed its comforting tone, and he moved to break some branches off the bush behind the dead girl.

"Thanks." Reid grinned. "What did you say your name was, again?"

"Jim. Jim McCrae. You'll have to forgive me, but I tend to be the quiet type until somethin' keeps me from being able to hold my tongue anymore."

That was the last he said.

They gathered their sticks and stones and laid their codes before beginning the walk to the road again. Three steps on the trek, Prentiss tripped herself over some loose dirt. Morgan caught her and the two looked back at the ground, and saw a rock the size of a fist had been moved from its resting place, and below the place it had been torn was a face.

"Maybe the dead people just like to follow you, Em." Morgan said to her. She ignored him and bent down while pulling out her make-up compact, opening it to remove a blush brush. "What the hell are you doing, girl?"

Reid answered for him, "Two dead bodies this close to each other? They've got to be linked."

Gently she brushed the dirt from the face. It was decayed a great deal more than the girl in the lawn chair, the skin grey and falling from where it had once lay smooth and pink. The eyes were missing, and as Emily brushed away the dirt revealing the neck, she saw the still-distinct bruises. "We've got a serial," she announced.

"Damn," came Morgan's voice," look, what we've also got is an hour of daylight left and at least another mile to the road."

"Yeah," helped Spencer while looking out onto the plain east of the direction they headed, "and I think I see a few more of the shallow graves." Looking up, he added, "And the victors that take the spoil."

All of them looked up to the circling buzzards overhead.

"If we leave these people," Emily told the team, "those birds could destroy any and all evidence on the fresh body."

"And if we don't," Morgan answered, "it won't be a whole lot longer before _we_ become their meal."

Defeated, she gently brushed the dirt onto the dead face in a meager attempt to hide it from the scavengers, and rose to begin walking again.

They moved steadily across the sand, sipping water sparingly, convincing themselves the heat was not so bad. The sun was moving down, and the heat of the horizon blurred the red ball as it slipped below the hills. The vibrant blue of the sky chased the star as it moved, leaving black velvet and glittering diamonds in its wake.

Dusk had fallen, and the cold came creeping in.

Ahead of the four there was a rise in the land. Down the edge of the rise was a telephone pole with one flickering green lamp growing off its side. The road was just ahead.

In the distance, something louder and more mechanical than the wind began to roar, its pitch increasing as it moved closer.

"Car!" Reid called.

"I got this," Morgan told them and ran up the embankment as distant yellow headlights grew, focused, and intensified on the side of his face. The truck must have seen him because it slowed and pulled to the side.

Reid, Prentiss, and Jim the pilot clambered up the hillside, pulling themselves to the side of the road and moving as quickly as they could to the red pickup.

A man stepped out of the cab, and moved around to greet them. "What the hell are-" he had started to ask them the question, but found himself stopping at the site of the four. He looked into Morgan's eyes, and then Prentiss's, and finally Reid's. "How did you find me?"


	2. Chapter 2

**My Own Backyard**

**Summary:** Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they've discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is.

**Legality:** I do not own anything Criminal Minds, I am just borrowing the universe and characters to tell a story.

**Author's Note:** Thank you so much to all of you that favorited the story or added it to your alerts, I take it as a very high compliment. I do have this entire story written (in my head) and I'm trying to get it out before Spring Semester starts so I have the time to finish it (which is proving a little difficult as I've never written fic for Criminal Minds before). Thank you everyone for reading, and here is chapter two:

* * *

Chapter Two

"How did you find me?"

"We didn't" Morgan answered him, unsure what else he could say to the face he had almost forgotten. His face had aged, though not any more than his deep lines having deepened more. His blue eyes had faded. He looked happy, if momentarily startled. It was astonishing to see him looking so _well_.

"Our plane crashed down, almost two miles out from here." Prentiss finished for him.

"Hey now," Jim jumped in, "_Emergency landed_. Not 'crashed'; 'landed'."

She continued, "Either way, we have no phone reception-"

"-I don't think you would find that out here", the man interjected. "Well, hop in the truck. I'll take you back to my cabin. You can call the rest of your team and have them fly you where you need to go."

"Actually," Morgan found his voice, "I think we might stay here. We found some bodies out in the desert. Now that I see you here, I'm thinking you should have something to do with that. What do you think?"

He gave no reply. He motioned for them to climb in the truck, and only Jim seemed content enough to do so.

Reid had been silent up to this point. Silent from disbelief, silent from being out of breath, silent from not knowing what to say. He had every reason to have been silent and to remain that way, but he finally spoke. "What are doing out here, Gideon?"

Reid's voice had an element of hurt in it, and Jason Gideon's face fell, as well it should have, for they all knew that he had abandoned their team only a few years ago, and though everyone else was able to move on, Reid suffered the most, having lost the only real father figure he knew when Gideon left.

"I'm sorry," Gideon said to the boy, "I found my peace."

Jim's voice called from the cab of the truck, "It's getting' a might bit too cold for me, let's get rolling."

Gideon's eyes never left Reid's face as he called back, "It sure is there, sir." Softly, to the three FBI agents he asked apologetically, "Will you let me take you home and feed you?"

* * *

A fire glowed softly from the small, stone fireplace. Jim had nodded off in front of it on the couch, and the four agents -one of them retired- sat around the dimly lit kitchen table drinking tea and picking at what was left of the rosemary chicken on their dishes.

Upon coming in, Gideon had handed his phone over Morgan, and insisted he cook for the team. They were tired and hungry, so they had given no protest. Reid hadn't actually said anything at all since they got in the truck. His silence added pain to the air, but Morgan had put energetic Garcia on the phone with Reid, and she was able to work her magic and cheer him up enough to be pleasant when they sat down to eat.

The meal itself had been delicious, though quiet at first. Once their bellies began to fill, their minds began to reassure of their coming team in the morning, and the warmth of the yellow-patterned wallpapered room set in, they were able to talk again. By dessert, it was as if Gideon had never left. They laughed, told stories of what he had been missing, of JJ having her beautiful son, of their great crusades, and even told him the tragedies that had fallen on Hotchner since Gideon's leaving.

Gideon leaned back in his chair and listened to everything. When he left, he had been sad and lost. Now he was on the outside looking in, like he was over-hearing a private joke that he had been the writer of. "As much as I miss all of you," he said, "and as much as I miss catching the bad guy, I don't miss the monsters.

"In truth, I found this little town, and I have found joy. It's peaceful here, beautiful at sun rise. Knowing that there is a monster that followed me to my own backyard? Well, maybe I will join you all in one last crusade."

The team smiled. They had missed him.

* * *

The early morning soft blue sky peaked over the mountains in front of them, the faint shimmer of the sun's yellow promising to follow. Agent Aaron Hotchner drove the big black SUV along the long stretch of barely-paved road with desert stretching to his right and mountains hovering over his left. He reached a hand to the center console to pull out his sunglasses in preparation of the sun's light.

David Rossi sat shotgun, and noticed his driver's actions, and followed suit. He looked over the vast expanse of desert, and took comfort in knowing his team had somehow made it out okay.

As the sun rose above the horizon, its beams shot out like flame and illuminated the stretch of valley with pure, white light. In this light, David Rossi was able to see the glint in the distance that could have possibly have been the plane. The light stabbed at Jennifer Jareau's sleeping eyes in the back seat, stirring her with a deep inhale, as she too fumbled to find her sunglasses somewhere on the bench seat in the back.

"Good morning, Starshine," Rossi called back to her.

Her replied was limited to a nonsensical "nmph".

"Wow, JJ, even Jack handles mornings better than you do," Hotchner let is guard down for just a second to make the joke.

"Yeah, well, Jack wasn't sleeping in a car. And if he was, he had a special seat," she told him, rubbing the crick in her neck. "How far off?"

"GPS says it's coming up soon."

As if on cue, the little electronic GPS system in the front console became to chime, signifying it was time to turn right in one mile. At the end of that road was the old red pick up truck and the little wooden cabin. Parked just behind the pick up, was an official looking white truck.

The three Agents pulled up behind the white truck, leaving room for it to leave first if it needed to, and climbing out of the car, Rossi read aloud the content of the star. "_Ranger_. Well, at least we're protecting the reserves."

"It more 'n just that," a large man with an impressive handlebar mustache called out to him from the porch, "See, we ain't got much out here, and ain't nobody wants to come driving out from their little police stations yonder just to check on some 'domestic dispute'. These people are a whole lot of ignored, so's I come out to check on them. Howdy. Ranger Bob, put 'er there." He grabbed Rossi's hand and shook it emphatically, willing the glint in his eye to double and transfer to the grayed FBI agent.

It didn't work.

"Well then," Ranger Bob concluded almost sheepishly, "I'll just be getting' Pilot Jim up to the po-lice station, so's he can catch a flight out of here. Seems to be the only one not stickin' 'round for the fun."

A man dressed in all khaki and a cowboy hat came walking out of the front of the house with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

"You ever gonna light that, Pilot Jim?"

"No sir. It's helping me quit, Ranger Bob."

"Is it working for ya?"

"No sir! But running out of matches did!"

The two men pulled open the doors of the white truck laughing, and prepared to back out.

"Wait," JJ whispered to Hotchner, "'Ranger Bob'? 'Pilot Jim'? Just what kind of hickville did Prentiss, Morgan and Reid fall into?"

"JJ!" he chided back.

A familiar voice from behind them added, "It's alright. It's a kind, peaceful hickville. And personally, I think I look rather dashing in the cowboy hat."

Jennifer Jareau turned quickly and threw her arms over his shoulders "Gideon!" After a few moments of hugging, se added, "And yes, your hat is very dashing."

"Would any of you like some bacon, eggs, or coffee?"

"Ooh, coffee," JJ jumped off of Gideon and waited for her next instructions to get the black elixir of life.

"Inside and to the left in the kitchen. Help yourself."

She ran almost instantly and called back her "thank you" from the door. The three men standing outside shared the best smile they could (they also happened to be the three men of the FBI who had seen the absolute worst of people, so smiling was difficult, to be fair), and moved inside the cabin together, intent on enjoying Gideon's peaceful bacon, eggs, and coffee.

The sleep was lifting from the group as a whole, and though Hotchner and Rossi were still exhausted from driving all night, neither one showed it.

"So, Agent Rossi, are you the new me?" Gideon asked of the only person at the table he did not recognize.

"I'm not sure what the protocol is on this, but I think you were just holding my place in the BAU for me."

Everyone else in the room went silent. Tension was rising.

"Ah," Gideon answered, calmly, "Glad I could have kept it _warm_ for you."

It is very possible that at this time in the room, one could hear a pin drop should it have decided to fall, but that silence was quickly shaken by a knock at the door.

"Jason get on over here," Ranger Bob called from the other side, "Or I may just piss myself." With that, he opened the front door himself and proceeded to head toward the restroom. The door was left standing open, and a strapping young man came stepping through, gently closing the door behind him, "Sorry about my pa, Mr. Gideon" the young man spoke.

"That's quite alright. Come on in, son, have some breakfast. Everyone, this is Clyde, Ranger Bob's son."

The boy was tall, with sandy brown hair, baby blue eyes, and a square jaw. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, except for those baby blues, which made him look six. He pulled up a plate and began to fix it saying, "I look forward to meeting y'all."

"What are you doing out here, Clyde?" Gideon asked of him, "I thought you were studying to be a coroner?"

"Yes, sir. A coroner in a town where the old people refuse to die and nothing ever happens. To be truthful, sir, I wanted to see the dead bodies, just to verify that they exist."

"Be careful what you wish for, Clyde," Rossi told the boy as Clyde wolfed down his eggs.

The sounds of a toilet flushing and a door opening alerted everyone that Ranger Bob was coming back in the room. Emily and JJ huddled together, showing no sign of the giggling going on in the back of their minds as they saw him enter. Although both women were typically very poised, they couldn't help but think that this man happened to be some kind of ridiculous character, though they would have never giggled at him to his face.

"Let's get 'er done," Ranger Bob called to the room.

Whatever food was left on the plates was then shoveled into the garbage, and the empty plates placed in the sink to soak in soapy water. They gathered their coats, though they knew they would have no use for them all day, and they gathered and distributed themselves between the three vehicles before those three vehicles went out to greet the orange sand.

It didn't take long for the desert sun to heat the valley. That incredible hot beat the police unit to the site by at least an hour.

Ramps had been built off the main road to accommodate trucks moving down so equipment didn't have to be carried. A large cabana had been set up with chairs and a water station under it to offer refuge from the heat, though it wasn't enough to work for long.

They had started with the girl in the lawn chair, carefully moving her into a body bag and having her packed up in the coroner's van. Then they spread from her dump site, stepping carefully over and around the shallow graves, digging them up and removing their contents throughout the day.

The blue of the sky had increased in saturation. The yellow orb had changed to a deep red orange. It hung low in the horizon, the same place it had been the evening before when the three agents had stepped off the destroyed plane. Together, Prentiss and Reid looked back at where the plane lay behind small sand hills and boulders.

"Don't do that to yourselves, kids," Morgan's voice came softly, "just focus on what you got in front of you."

"A shirtless man?' Reid asked him.

"What? I'm just doing this for when Penelope calls," he flashed them his white grin, and the three broke apart ready to work again.

The sun dipped down lower and the light was fading fast. No one had brought the night time work lights, and Ranger Bob called it in. Seven bodies including the first girl, and they needed to get them back to their families. The plan was to come back out and do it again tomorrow, see if there were anymore kids out there.

Exhausted, they packed up everything but the canopy and the lawn chair, and moved themselves back across the darkened desert to the main road ahead.

The police had carted up everything of the evidence and were taking it back to the station. Rossi and Hotchner said nothing, and everyone suspected that was from near three days with neither of them having any sleep. JJ had fallen asleep in the back of Hotchner and Rossi's car. Morgan and Prentiss rode in the back of Gideon's truck, and she leaned on him for support, and he silently wrapped his arm around her to give it. Reid rode up in the front of Gideon's truck, carefully going over his calculated notes of where the bodies were buried so he could guess where to find the next one.

And Gideon was proud of them all, and was reminded of just how much he missed them all.

The cabin was dark when they arrived, and JJ insisted on taking care of the dishes for Gideon. The guest bedrooms and couches were all promised away, as Gideon wanted to house his old team. They were groggily saying goodnight to one another as a soft knock sounded on the door. Gideon answered it and Ranger Bob strode in, looking nervous.

"Say," he said, "you haven't seen my boy have you? He came home with me, but he's been gone since we got back."

The concern on his face spread to the team inside of Gideon's house. "No." Gideon told the man. "Let's get looking. You all stay here. _Rest._" He told them.

With that, Gideon grabbed his coat and went out the front door with Ranger Bob. The team shared significant glances, but were too exhausted to do anything about them, and so they went off to bed, one by one.

* * *

Clyde was tired when he got home. His dad had gone inside, and Clyde went out to hear the coyotes wake; it was his favorite part of the night.

He climbed one of the larger boulders outside of the Ranger Station and sat at the top of it. Somewhere in the far distance, the prairie wolf howled, and its voice was carried by the breeze. A second prairie wolf howled from a new location and the two sang together. Clyde closed his eyes and listened to the music made by the dogs.

Eyes still closed, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the joint he had been saving and lit it. It was a very long day, and he was relieved to come back and be able to calm down this way.

Agent Rossi had been right. The first dead body he saw was that girl, couldn't have been more than sixteen; and if that weren't enough, all the other bodies were belonging to kids the same age. And there were seven of them. Seven kids killed and no one noticed. This town did that, though. A sixteen year-old goes missing, no one thinks foul play, they all assume the kid had enough and hopped a bus to go be someone somewhere else. That was this town.

Clyde remembered when he ran away.

And he pushed the thoughts of failure back out of his mind when a twig snapped nearby. Startled he jumped and called, "Who's there?"

"What are you doing out here, boy?" The gruff voice came from the base of the boulder. Clyde quickly put his joint out and tried to blow the smell of the marijuana away.

"Uh, nothing. Just, uh, listening to the coyotes is all," he said to the unfamiliar voice.

"I smell what you're doing, boy. You're using this desert like she used it, to be a junkie and get high. That's not any way to respect the desert, boy."

"Look, it's not like that," Clyde called to the man. He began crawling down the boulder to greet this man face to face, to work some of his famous Clyde charm on him.

When he got to the bottom of the boulder, he was given no time or opportunity to explain before a large hand seized him around the neck and began choking him. The world went blacker than the night for Clyde, and then he remembered nothing.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thank you again for reading, and I will try to have the next chapter up as soon as I can. Any and all reviews would be greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoyed, and I hope to see you next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**My Own Backyard**

**Summary:** Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they've discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is.

**Legality:** I do not own anything Criminal Minds, I am just borrowing the universe and characters to tell a story.

**Author's Note:** Thank you again to everyone who added the story to their alerts and favorites, and thank you for the reviews! You're all wonderful. Now let's get on with it.

* * *

Chapter Three

"That's my son! That's my _boy_!" Ranger Bob crumpled to his knees in front of the lawn chair where young Clyde sat lifeless, the blue of his eyes staring out hauntingly with a glaze of death over them. Bob's enormous body became a mass of heaves as he screamed to the heavens, "What did he do? My boy, my son, what did he _do_ for this?!" His face writhed in pain and Jason Gideon stepped up to pull the large man off the ground.

"We're going to find who did this, Bob," he told him, pulling his arm to escort him from the crime scene. "I swear to you, we will find him."

Ranger Bob hunched over himself while standing, the large man suddenly seeming so small as his shoulders shook with grief. He looked back to where his son sat, and the anguish washed over his face again before he moved to go back to the boy.

Aaron Hotchner and Jason Gideon each grabbed Ranger Bob's arms and held the wailing man back. They each knew his pain in their own ways, and knew nothing would help but taking him away from the body, no matter how badly he wanted to hold his dead son. Gideon placed one hand on Bob's chest saying, "look at me, Bob. We're going to get you out of here. He's in good hands, let's go get some coffee."

"I'll come with you," JJ added, putting a hand on Bob's shoulder as Gideon took him to the truck. After he passed, Hotchner looked at JJ, his face mirroring the pain on Bob's. "There have been positive IDs on the other bodies, and someone needs to break the news to the parents. I don't think it should have to be Ranger Bob."

Hotchner looked at the sobbing man before looking back at her. He nodded at and walked with her to the Truck.

Rossi, Prentiss, Reid, and Morgan gathered around the young man they had met the day before, and in solemn silence, began to look him over. In his lap was a bud of weed, and his shirt pocket had a piece of paper stuffed inside. The coroner came over to look over the body with them, and some of the CSIs began collecting the evidence.

"Hey," Morgan said to one of the CSIs, "that joint? Can you make sure to do a drug and tox screen on the kid? And maybe follow up with the other bodies too?"

"Sure thing," the CSI responded. "We don't actually have a lab for that here, but there's a city up north, 'bout an hour drive, we'll call in and ask to use their equipment."

"Great."

"Morgan?" Rossi asked, "What are you thinking?"

"I get it." Reid answered for him. "There's nothing that really ties these kids together other than a general age range. Four of them weren't even from the town. Clyde was, what, 28? He doesn't fit, and neither does the marijuana, but that's only because we didn't think to check for drugs in the other kids. Maybe that'll be the link."

"I guess no town is safe," Prentiss added.

"If he dumps the body in the same lawn chair," Reid continued, "then it stands to reason that he dumped all the bodies here, right? But why the change? Why go back and bury them?"

"The chair shows pride," Rossi answered, "the graves show remorse."

"So what," Morgan joined the brainstorm, "maybe we're looking at two UnSubs? One that kills and puts on the display. The other that knows what's happening and doesn't stop it, just goes to bury the dead?"

"Yeah, but these kids have to be connected somehow. Look, he strangled them with his hands, that's personal. They wouldn't just be random kids if he had to get in their faces to kill them." Prentiss thought aloud.

"What did these kids do to you?" Morgan asked to nothingness while looking at the body. Looking up over the terrain, he added, "I think we're almost ready for a profile. 'Sides, there's not much left we can do to help here."

* * *

The police station was small, cramped and hot. There were three rooms in the station that were not open to the rest of the offices, or divided merely by cubicle walls: the bathroom, the interrogation room, and the police chief's office. True to being polite in the small-town-charm kind of way, Police Chief Davies offered his office to the team to work in private. His wife, a second-grade teacher brought in her classroom white board to give them a place to write out their thoughts. Though the office was cramped, the team was genuinely grateful for what the town gave them to help.

The board had the pictures of (now nine) strangled teenagers that had been found in the desert. Outside, JJ sat with a circle of large, silent men in cowboy hats and their grieving wives as she explained to them that no, their children hadn't run away, they had been murdered. And yes, they were going to do everything possible to figure who did.

Two of the parents looked much older than the rest, and told JJ that their daughter had gone missing at eighteen, over twenty years ago. They had just assumed she went to Vegas or LA or any other large city, though in their hearts, they always knew it wasn't right.

Hers was the oldest skeleton the search team had found, Peggy Janes.

Prentiss entered the office with a clear plastic bag containing a creased slip of paper. "The paper left in Clyde's pocket," she explained, "It's a note."

She posted it on the board and read it aloud:

_They do not respect the desert.__  
They abuse her and take from her.  
__So we take back what they stole  
And give the life back to Her._

"'We'," quoted Morgan, "so there is more than one."

"Look at how he capitalizes 'Her', like the desert is a god of some sort," Rossi added.

"Yeah, but now he's reaching out and trying to justify," Reid's mind was obviously turning over in his head as he analyzed, "It shows the remorse element again, even though he doesn't apologize, but rather like it's something we're supposed to already understand."

Prentiss offered the other bit of new information, "Tox screens came back on all the kids. The two sixteen year-olds were drunk, and the others were all intoxicated with some sort of street drug. Nothing too hard, mostly just THC."

"Even though it's all illegal, I don't see how any of this takes from the desert." Morgan chimed.

"Parties," said Gideon, "they leave trash, build fires, and kill what little life is left out there. Not to mention what could happen on the plain by yourself: hungry coyotes, large distances to fall, plus everything looks the same, so it's easy to get lost even when you're sober. Add to it the party, who's to say these kids didn't wander themselves into some kind of trap?"

"Are you suggesting it's the fault of the children that this happened?" Rossi looked over Gideon with a critical eye.

"Not at all," Gideon responded in his typical, cool tone, "just trying to understand what the killer was thinking. You see, it's not what my opinions of these kids are, it's what his opinions are. We need to find those."

Rossi did not handle correction well, and swiftly changed the subject. "So what have we got?"

"White male," Prentiss started, "The timing of the first killing puts him close to sixty. Would have suffered some sort of great loss about twenty years ago, something he would have blamed on the desert."

"He's doing all the work, but someone out there knows it's him," Reid continued for her, "They go back and do the clean up for him. Over time, they would have justified his actions and made excuses for him."

"The time he spends wandering around in the open," Morgan continued, "shows that not only does he know the land, but that he has the freedom to wander it. He's a local. Look for someone very independent, most likely living with the one other person who's helping him. He acts with an air of entitlement; the other, the submissive one, seems normal. The submissive blends in with society well, works to keep up appearances for them both."

"It's good." Hotchner nodded to the team and added, "Call Garcia and have her give us a registry of everyone in the town. It's important not to tell the local law enforcement of the profile just yet; this town is small and we have no reason not to rule them out as an UnSub."

Hotchner left the room and went to sit with Ranger Bob again, as Morgan pulled out the lap top and opened the screen to chat with Penelope Garcia.

Her smiling face appeared, and beamed brighter once she realized that it was Morgan staring back at her, "How you doing, Hot Stuff?" She said to him.

"You know, hanging in there, Baby Girl," he grinned back. "I have a favor to ask." He said to her.

"First, you tell me: that plane crash, was it awful? Did you have to remove your shirt to stop someone's bleeding? Do tell!"

"Not awful, Baby. We all made it out without a scratch. Though, I did remove my shirt to go work in the valley, just for you."

"My stud!" She feigned swooning before getting back off track and adding, "Is it true? You found Gideon? Where is he? Is he still creepy-cryptic man?"

"I'm right here, Garcia," Gideon called from behind the screen, "Glad to hear you haven't changed much in your perky ways."

She blushed and mouthed _oops._

"How 'bout that favor, Penny? We need a roster of everyone in the town. Include birthdates, and any criminal records they might have."

"Coming right up, my box of chocolate," she said, just before flashing her sweet smile and closing the screen. It was a grand total of a minute before the notification popped up with the 312 names on it.

"You better get cracking," Gideon announced to them.

"And where are you going?" Prentiss asked, offended.

"Never did like the paperwork."

Reid offered nonchalantly, "I'm going to step outside too. Something's not sitting with me well about the profile. Maybe looking over the desert will help."

Prentiss and Morgan looked on in disbelief as Reid up and left. Gideon chuckled to himself before exiting the room behind Spencer.

He followed him out to the front of the Police Station.

"What's bothering you, kid?"

"No offense, Gideon, but you don't really get to call me 'kid' anymore. You left, remember? And even if you hadn't, I am very much an adult now."

The kid's jump to irritability was sad in itself. He wasn't very good at keeping a person from wanting to press his buttons.

"I'm sorry, Spencer," the old man told him. "I had to leave. You know that. After Sarah…" he trailed off, and let the note hang in the air.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"It isn't yours either, but you still blame yourself for it."

"She was my reason, my everything for working in this business. It meant protecting her from evil. And then I failed at it. I had to get out and find my reason again. I had to find the peace she brought my life."

"I understand that. I have, all along. It just seemed easier to blame you than face the logic of your reasons. I am sorry for that."

"It's all forgiven, Spencer. Now, tell me what's bugging you."

Reid paused and gathered his courage. He had trouble grasping his reasoning for what was bothering him. "Tobias Hankel," he said, looking at the ground.

"That was three years ago, Spencer. Is there a reason he's popped to mind?" Gideon's eyes travelled down to Reid's messenger bag, a clear indication and insinuation for Reid's old habit.

"Not that. Really. I'm not sure, but I can't…I can't get him out of my mind on this case and I don't know why."

"You're the one who lived it, Spencer. You saw him for all the people he was. If you say so, I will believe that it's possible we have a repeat of Hankel here. I will go tell the team for you, if that's what you want."

Reid remained silent, still thinking it over. Gideon went on, "There's nothing in the profile that says it couldn't be a multiple personality team working. In fact, it would fit better, being that the one has to be so…independent. What do you want, kid?"

This time, the name didn't bother him. "Tell them," he said, "but…let me think about it a bit more first. I'm going to mull it over out here. Maybe the desert will tell me 'Her' answers."

"Sure thing." Gideon turned to leave, but before getting back inside, Reid stopped him asking, "When this is all over, what will happen, Gideon?"

"What do you mean, Spencer?"

"Will we see you again? Will you come back to the team? Will we have to go searching for you again? Or do you just want to stay lost to us?"

"You won't have to go searching for me. I give you my word on that."

Reid's face told Gideon that he was satisfied with that answer, despite its cryptic nature, and so Gideon excused himself to go pitch the idea to the rest of the team.

* * *

Spencer Reid approached the bluff overlooking the vast desert below. He felt the cold flowing into the valley as the moon began its journey across the sky. He stepped to the edge, and held on to his messenger bag like it was a safety rail.

He didn't know why he went off on Gideon the way he did when the man came to talk to him, but he was glad it happened. Glad they cleared the air, though he had the feeling that after this case, he would not see his old mentor again.

Stepping even closer to the bluff, he looked at the faded orange rock below. He sat then, and swung his feet over the side. It felt nice to sit in the cool. In the quiet. It was then that he fully understood why Gideon called it his "peace".

A footstep fell behind him and he turned to look at the man approaching.

"What are you doing out here, boy?" The man said.

* * *

**Author's Note:** As always, any and all reviews would be greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoyed, and I hope to see you next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**My Own Backyard**

**Summary:** Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they've discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is.

**Legality:** I do not own anything Criminal Minds, I am just borrowing the universe and characters to tell a story.

**Author's Note:** Many thanks for all the wonderful, positive reviews. Also, more thanks to those that added the story to your alerts/favorites. Muah!  
Also-also, my apologies for the wait on this chapter. It would have been done last night, but the Golden Globes were on. I'm sorry, sparkly dresses distracted me. D=

* * *

Chapter Three

Spencer Reid strained to look over his shoulder at the man standing in the black, his face was obscured by the shadows cast by an orange streetlight behind his head. He was large, and wore a cowboy hat, which didn't narrow down the list of locals it could have been.

"Uh…" he said to the man, still trying to make out his facial features. "Just looking over the desert. Communing with it, I guess."

The man took another step and the light was thrown to the side of his face, "Beautiful out here, isn't it?" Ranger Bob strode up beside Reid and looked out over the plain. "Strange how the land can answer so many questions for you, just by giving you a place to think about them in quiet."

"Yeah," Reid agreed, "I guess it's something we forget about in the big cities. And the stars."

"You ain't got stars where you're from, boy?" Ranger Bob chuckled at him, and began the painful task of moving his body to ground level to pull up a spot of faded orange bluff next to Dr. Reid. "'Cause I could have sworn them stars were everywhere." He plopped on the ground and turned his knees to let his aging legs drop over the side.

"They are. They just get hidden behind the city lights."

"I know, I'm just yanking your chain. What exactly are you, what was the word you used? 'Communing'?"

"Just the case. Something's not sitting right with me. I'm trying to figure it out. I was thinking, since our UnSub has this connection with the desert, maybe I should try connecting, finding the answers here. Think like the killer, you know?"

"Heh. 'S'it workin'?"

"I don't know yet," Reid confided.

"My boy used to do this too, y'know." Ranger Bob kicked his feet a little and followed the sound of a pebble falling down the bluff below with his eyes. His face had fallen again, and there was pain in the eyes that sat above his impressive mustache. "Liked sitting out here to relax. Something I think he picked up from his mom."

"What happened to her? His mom, your wife, I mean."

"She died some time back. Real tragic accident. I think Clyde musta been, oh, about seven or eight. Kid was so young, he didn't even know what to do with himself. Became the book kind after that. The thinking kind. I always was proud o' him for that, even if he did make some bad choices. You're the thinking kind too, ain't ya? Your daddy proud of you?" A mild twinkle reappeared in his eye, a faint memory of what it once was.

"I don't really know. He's been…gone."

Ranger Bob nodded in response to Reid's comment. "Small town like this," he said, "we get a lot of that. I bet he is proud, boy, whether or not he knows it. Even if he ain't, I can tell Gideon's got more pride for you than I usually see a father for his son. Shoot, if I didn't know any better, I'd think the old goat was your daddy the way he beams over that brain of yours."

Reid smiled to himself. Whether the sentiment was true or not, it was nice to hear.

"That smile there," Ranger Bob said to him, "that tells me the desert here just answered your real questions. She's good like that."

"Thanks." Spencer began the move to getting on his feet again. He was ready to go inside and think more there, away from the piercing cold growing from the breeze. "Would you like help up, Bob?"

"Nah. I'm just going to sit out here a while longer. She might have some answers for me too." Replied Bob.

"Right. Well, if I don't see you before tomorrow, have a good night."

Spencer turned and started walking back to the station. Something new struck a chord with him from that conversation. Something familiar, but he still wasn't sure.

* * *

"Tobias Hankel? Seriously?" Emily Prentiss was slouched down in her chair, her face showing signs of the exhaustion she would never admit.

"It fits." Derek Morgan jumped in. "Doesn't change the rest of the profile, just fits what we already have. It fits a little too well, actually."

"And," JJ reminded them, "If anyone would know, it would be Spence." She dropped her head down with her brow creased, remembering.

Rossi looked around the room, able to see what effect Reid's attack had on the entire team. Being that he had no connection with the incident, other than reading the papers, he recognized the need for a clear-headed statement. "Get Garcia on the phone," he said to them, "have her see what she can do with mental history records and cross check them with police reports. Look for men in their early to mid sixties with a history of blackout."

"This isn't the type of area," Gideon calmly explained, "that's going to have a lot on mental health records. I think the better option would be to ask the people, present the profile to the public."

"Violent behavior and delusions like this," Rossi argued, "are not the kind of thing to be over-looked, no matter where you are. There will be some sort of record of this man that could be an indicator of this later behavior."

"And if there isn't?"

"Exactly what are we supposed to do? You have a lot of angry, hurt people in this town with big guns who know every sightline vantage point, that are eager to point those guns at us because, as far as they're concerned, this town was peaceful until we showed up." Rossi moved closer to Gideon's relaxed form across the room, as Gideon reclined further, letting the man rant, "You want us to go out to their houses where we have no reception if we need to call for back up, and knock on their doors, and say, what? 'I know you think no one in this town is capable of doing something like this, but we know it's got to be someone you know. Cough up the names of your crazies'? Does that really sound like a good idea?"

The room was quiet. All the agents were silent as they stared at the battle that was growing.

Slowly, calmly, quietly, retired agent Gideon stood from his chair and put his nose right in front of Rossi's. "Yes. A more efficient one than digging through paper work that probably won't have the answers, anyway. Efficiency is something we need at this point. In case you hadn't noticed, our UnSub has just killed two kids in less than a month. He's escalating. Who knows when the next kill will be?"

Rossi shifted again to regain the physical higher ground to counter Gideon's argument, but Morgan, recognizing the need more mediation, stepped between them. "That's enough. Tonight, we call Garcia and have her send us the information. Tomorrow, or as soon as we have information, Hotch, Em and I will go knocking on doors. Sound fair?"

"Quite." Gideon concurred, as he moved to sit in his chair again.

"Sure," Rossi added as he moved back to the other side of the room.

"Good," Morgan was able to let his guard down again. "JJ, will you call Garcia? And boys, try to keep the fighting down while Mommy's on the phone?"

Prentiss could not hold back her snort of laughter as Derek placed himself back in his chair.

Obediently, JJ clicked open the calling screen to connect with Garcia.

"Oh my beautiful babies!" She cooed from the monitor, "Are you all getting gorgeous tans out there in the sun?" Her bright red glasses reflected JJ's face from Garcia's screen in D.C.

"Something like that," JJ smiled to her.

"Good. I like my babies all glammed up. What can I do for you?"

"You know that roster we had you send us a while back? We need you to check those police records against any mental health records you have. Look for blackouts with violent behavior?"

"Coming right up, Hot Mama." Her eyes left the camera, and her fingers started tapping rapidly on her keyboard. "Let's see, I've got one report here of a Mr. Alton Trent who nearly killed a man in a bar brawl with his bare hands in 1990, but was so drunk he couldn't remember doing it."

"That sounds about right," Hotchner added.

"How old is Trent?" JJ asked.

"Says here he is 64 years old, and his wife is…oh. His wife died in 1979, her car went off the road and crashed into a boulder."

"That could be the trigger," Rossi interjected.

"He lives on Old Farm Road. Apparently, alone. No record of children," Garcia continued, "And my magic box hath just clued me in that he was court-ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous after the brawl in 1990, but he never went."

"Garcia, send us the GPS coordinates of the house, we'll go out right away," Hotchner commanded.

"Already did, my lovely. Now go catch some bad guys!" She cheered and smiled her Garcia smile before waving a fluffy pink pen at them as she closed her window and disconnected the chat session.

"Good," Morgan moved to grab his jacket as he added, "Em, Hotch come with me. Let's go find this guy."

* * *

The three agents had been in silence for all of the drive. They were about three miles down Old Farm Road when Morgan noticed the little house off to the right. The GPS system chimed, and they pulled off in a cloud of dust to the dirt driveway that had been made in front of the brown shack.

A grey truck sat idle in front of the house, a thick layer of brown dirt and dust covering the top surfaces of the vehicle. As the agents climbed out of their SUV, they noticed a front light was on in the house and could see the flicker of a television.

They nodded to each other and each pulled their guns to the ready as they stepped up to the door.

Morgan knocked three times. "Mr. Trent, this is the FBI, we have a few questions for you."

Beyond the wood a laugh track sounded from a muffled TV.

"Mr. Trent?" Morgan tried again, this time louder, and banging on the door as he did so. The last bang was hard and the door swung open a bit from a broken handle not doing its job and the lack of a lock in use.

A smell came wafting out of the house, a smell all three agents knew too well.

Death.

Slowly, Morgan pulled out his flashlight and aimed it inside as he pushed the door open. Across from the entry, the three saw the lawn chair with the ripened corpse still sitting in it.

* * *

Spencer Reid was staring at the board again. The office they had been given to work in was much less crowded with half the team on their crusade, and it gave him the opportunity to think while looking at the victims without the feeling of people breathing down his neck.

The police office as a whole had quieted down a great deal, as most of the officers had gone home for the night. The last two, obvious friends of the families of the most recently discovered bodies, were lagging behind, dreading going home to tell their own family who they had found today. But even they were packing it up for the night, leaving the station feeling deserted. In the very back corner of the large central room, Ranger Bob sat alone, silently staring out the window.

Something still wasn't sitting right with Reid.

The Telephone rang behind him. "JJ," she answered. She followed with various "Say that again," "You're breaking up," and "I understand" phrases before hanging the phone back up.

"It's not Trent," she told the room. "He's apparently dead, and has been for a while now. Emily guesses longer than Clyde or the girl that was the first found."

"See?" Rossi said, nonchalantly, "Knocking on doors did us no good."

Matching his tone, Gideon replied with, "Neither did the computer records."

Spencer tuned the bickering out. He stared at the board, carefully calculating the evidence, adding it up. His eye was continually drawn to the letter left with Clyde,_ They abuse her and take from her…give the life back to Her._ And somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he heard an anguished voice yelling, _My boy, my son, what did he _do_ for this?!_

"'The desert here just answered your real questions. She's good like that.'" Reid quoted aloud as it clicked, "Ranger Bob." He concluded loudly.

The bickering stopped; JJ, Rossi, and Gideon all had their eyes fixed on Reid. Responding to their confusion, he added, "Ranger Bob said that to me earlier tonight. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but when he greeted me, it was like I couldn't recognize him, and then he addressed the desert like it was some higher power."

Metal clicked from behind Reid as a gun was cocked. He turned carefully to see the barrel of that gun staring back at him. Beyond the barrel was Ranger Bob, the anger in his eyes almost rendering him unrecognizable.

"You accusing, son?" He asked of the young genius in a voice that was gruff and menacing.

Reid swallowed hard.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry, I can't seem to resist the cliffhanger. I hope you're all enjoying the story so far, and I hope you all come back next chapter! As always, any and all reviews will be greatly appreciated, you fabulous readers, you.


	5. Chapter 5

**My Own Backyard**

**Summary:** Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they've discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is.

**Legality:** I do not own anything Criminal Minds, I am just borrowing the universe and characters to tell a story.

**Author's Note:** Many thanks for all the wonderful, positive reviews. Also, more thanks to those that added the story to your alerts/favorites.  
My apologies for the extreme delay on this chapter. Semester started up, and I was considerably side-tracked by it. But finally, here is the thrilling almost-conclusion of this story. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Five

"Damn, Em, we really can't take you anywhere without a dead body."

"I'm seriously beginning to believe I'm cursed," she agreed dryly as she moved around Morgan to better inspect the deceased.

"Did I miss something?" Agent Hotchner asked from the kitchen.

"Yeah," Morgan called to him, "Prentiss is the reason all these people are turning up dead."

"What?" Hotchner asked, stepping into the room.

"Not really," she corrected, "I just have a knack for going where the bodies are…apparently. Although, to be fair, Derek has been with me every time I find someone dead."

"Yeah, girl, but you're the one who had to go say something about it before the plane went down, and according to the laws of superstition, that makes it your fault." He flashed his brilliant smile at her, which led her to roll her eyes back at him.

"You know," she said, "it's times like this when I miss Spencer being around to put you in your place with some random statistic."

"Eighty per cent of statistics are made up," Hotchner jokingly helped.

"You're both awful," she called to the men, "and I'm going outside to call the team and let them know about Mr. Trent here."

The men shared a stifled laugh as she left the room, and gathered their composure to examine the dead body.

His hair was grown down to his shoulders and grey, matching the shade of his peeling skin. Dark circles were under his closed eyes and his head lopped to one side, exposing his bare neck. He wore a tattered blue baseball cap with an embroidered emblem that resembled something that may have once been a fish.

"Beer half empty on the table," Hotchner pointed out.

Morgan nodded in agreement. "It's like he just fell asleep and never woke up. We should all be so lucky."

Hotchner surveyed the rest of the room. Piles of fishing magazines blocked access to the couch, and a dirty dinner plate sat next to the flat beer, the cockroaches and flies having already picked the remaining food apart leaving just the bone of what assumedly was once a chicken dinner. The TV had cut to static and snow, and provided a gentle white noise to the otherwise silent scene.

"Is there even a lake around here _to_ fish at?" Morgan asked Hotchner.

"The man was a recluse. He lived vicariously through the magazines. He didn't need to really go fishing.

"There's not much else we can do here but get back to the station and report this. Someone will probably be by in the morning to collect him."

"Yeah, it's not like he's going anywhere," Morgan helped.

The two men walked outside together where Prentiss was clicking buttons on her cell phone.

"I think JJ heard everything I was telling her, but the call dropped, and now I can't get any service."

Hotchner and Morgan instinctively checked their phones as well. Nothing.

Sighing, the three agents pulled the doors open to the SUV and climbed in, defeated. Hotchner readied his key and slid it into the ignition, turning it as he did so.

The starter clicked, and went back to silence. His brow furrowed and he tried again. Again, the starter offered nothing but silence following its click.

"Oh you gotta be kidding me," Morgan groaned.

"I am so…so sick of walking." Emily lowered her forehead to her palm from the back seat as all three climbed back out of the SUV into the night.

The walk to the police station was short if driven, but the three agents had been up for far more hours working than any person should have to be, and their reluctant muscles were already exhausted.

Still, they marched as quickly as they could.

* * *

"What are you doing, Bob?" Reid was facing him, his hands in the air to show that he would be no threat to the man or his gun. The tense silence had been echoing in the room for what felt like an hour at that point, though at most, it could have only been five minutes.

"I'm protecting Bob's good name," his deepened, gruff voice said back to the young agent calmly.

"You see," Rossi whispered to Gideon across the room, "I told you talking to the locals wouldn't end well."

"Well," Gideon responded, "looks to me more like the local has come to talk to us." He raised himself from his chair slowly and moved his hands to the side of his head like Reid's to show that he too meant no threat. Matching Bob's calm tone, but using his own soothing voice, Gideon said to him, "Point the gun at me, Bob. The kid's done nothing wrong."

Bob's eyes flicked to Gideon's solemn face, though his gun remained pointed at Reid's forehead.

"What is he doing?" JJ whispered to Rossi.

Rossi's eyes lit up. He knew exactly what was going on, "He's distracting him," he whispered back before standing as well with his hands up. "Yeah," he said to Bob. "I mean, if there's anyone to be mad at, shouldn't it be Gideon, here? He's the one that talked the police department into letting us all in here to catch you. He's the real threat to you."

Gideon and Rossi shared a glance. Neither man showed any fear, just total understanding on their faces.

"Besides," Gideon added, "How do you know I didn't already have you figured out and planned this all on purpose?" He baited the man, anything to get the gun off young Reid.

"You…" Bob breathed anger, "You would do that to Bob?" In a blink, the gun moved to face Gideon's chest.

In a moment of clear, utter relief, Reid fell back into the nearest chair, his hands collapsing on his own chest. "He didn't," he told Bob. "He wouldn't do that to you."

Bob crinkled his nose and looked down at the ground. "Y'all are just trying to confuse us!" He yelled, gun shifting between the two men.

"We just want to talk to you, Bob," Rossi comforted. The gun raced to him. "Just put your weapon down and we can all talk like the civilized law enforcement and protectors we are."

"Protectors." Bob echoed back in the voice the team was familiar with. He breathed, still holding the gun up. His face darkened with anger and the rough voice spoke again, "I ain't stupid. You want to talk? We do it on _my_ terms. Put your weapons on the table here in front of me," he yelled out. "Go on!"

The agents listened obediently and they each slowly removed the guns from their hips, setting them down in front of Ranger Bob.

"Lift your pants and pull the guns from your socks, as well, boys," he called to them.

All of the agents lifted their pant legs to show their ankles were bare, though Rossi had a small Colt strapped to his sock, and slowly, he removed it and set it on the table.

"Now all y'all get on the far end of the room, there. I'll sit here, and then we can talk, but don't think this gun ain't staying up," he commanded.

They moved to the far wall together.

Reid leaned towards the window.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, boy?" Bob yelled, shoving his gun towards Reid again, his blue eyes darkening to a steely grey.

"Just…just opening the window, sir," Reid said, turning again, "it's stuffy in here. Don't you agree, Bob? I mean, I see you've got some sweat on your brow, I thought you might like it."

"Hell, just a crack," he responded, "and then no more funny business!"

Reid cracked the window and sighed in the fresh air. He hoped when the others arrived, they'd be able to hear what was happening before walking through the front door themselves.

Ranger Bob pulled his chair center and sat heavily in it, five guns in front of him, and one still waving in his hand. He settled the movement of the gun at Gideon's chest again. "Nothing personal, friend," he said mockingly in the gruff voice, "but you did ask for it."

"Why don't you put the gun down, Bob?" Gideon asked, not allowing himself to be affected by the deadly weapon staring him down.

"Really," Rossi added, "Do you really want to shoot your _friend_, Ranger? You could kill him like you killed your son."

Bob let out a slow breath. "I'll kill you all if I have to."

* * *

Prentiss groaned. "I don't think my feet are ever going to forgive me for this trip," she announced. They had been walking for a very long time, though the police station was beginning to come in view, lit by the only lamp on the road for miles. It flickered like a bad horror movie.

"It's not our fault you didn't pack your 'sensible' shoes, Prentiss," Hotchner called back to her.

"Did he just make a joke?" She asked of Morgan who was keeping pace with the lagging agent. He shrugged. "Did you just make a joke?" She yelled at Hotchner.

"…Maybe," he smirked back over his shoulder.

Morgan laughed and said softly to Prentiss, "He's been in such a good mood lately. Maybe he's getting some that we haven't heard about."

"Oh, who do you think it is?" She whispered back as the two laughed. Hotchner turned to face them and continued walking backward as he called "I heard that!"

"Yeah, but we don't hear you denying anything," Morgan called back.

The heel on Prentiss's right shoe snapped off then and she slipped to the side. Quickly, Morgan caught her, as Hotchner began briskly walking back to the pair. She righted herself and picked the heel off the ground. "Well that's just great," she sighed cynically, still mostly being propped up by Morgan. "You know, I don't think I'm ever wearing heels again after this."

Hotchner approached them with the seriousness placed back on his face. "Let me see if I can fix that," he said, offering his empty hand. She passed the heel of her shoe to him, and then removed the offending shoe and passed that to him as well.

"Okay, MacGyver," she said as she handed them over.

"The other shoe too," he added.

Confused, she removed the other and tried not to think about whatever was squishing under her toes as she handed the second shoe to him.

He stared intensely at the shoe, and snapped off the second heel. Still entirely serious, he said to her, "There, now they're flats. Let's get moving."

He began walking off again as Morgan doubled over laughing. Still staring in disbelief, Prentiss put the shoes back on her feet, fully aware of the feeling of every rock and pebble under the arches of her feet. Seeing Morgan laugh, she jokingly threw one of the heels at Derek's head, barely missing his ear. He righted himself but continued to chuckle as they followed Hotchner down the final stretch of road.

* * *

Every time Bob stopped for breath, one of the agents in the room would ask him a new question, bait him into a further rant, anything to keep him talking until the others could arrive. Bob would carry on and on and wave his gun around, making it clear that he was still in charge. He was running out of options and it was clear that his plan had been badly thought out, still, he wanted them to understand the power of the desert: Her ability to call life to Her so She can take it, just like Bob's sweet, hiking wife. He wanted them to understand these children were taken because they offended the great desert, and so, he took it upon himself to give the children back to Her so She may do as She will with them.

But, every few seconds, the real Bob, sad as he was, would come through. Gideon waited on this, waited for the crack to get the man to fold.

"But what did your son do, Bob?" Gideon asked of him. "Your son was a good boy, Bob. We all knew Clyde. Why him?

The grey eyes flashed to blue, the gun lowered to his lap and the Ranger looked at the board of photographs, seeing his own Clyde up there in two pictures next to another girl. In one picture, Clyde stood smiling next to his father, both holding rifles on a father/son camp out vacation from two years ago. The other, he sat lifeless in a lawn chair in the desert, his kind eyes staring at nothingness; dead.

"My boy…" he said. "My dear boy." His great eyes began welling with tears and his mustache shook a bit as the man's lip quivered. "He was misguided was all," the sweet voice justified.

"No." Bob's rough voice came back. His eyes shifted to grey again and the tears stopped flowing immediately. "That boy was as bad as the rest, and he of all people should have understood how to respect Her."

"But," Gideon said, "he was your son."

"And," Rossi added, "I don't think he would have tried to harm anyone, least of all 'Her'."

"You're trying to confuse us again! Try to make us regret!" the rough voice yelled to them, steadying the gun again.

"No, Bob. We're concerned about you," Reid helped. "We want to help you, Bob. Help you like you helped me out in the desert. We just need you to put the gun down now."

The move was bold. Possibly too bold, everything weighed upon how Ranger Bob would respond to Reid's attempt to connect. His cold eyes stared at Reid's warm ones, holding the connection as the man decided. Reid sat patiently. If he made to pray or beg in his head, he showed no sign of doing so on the outside. They waited.

"To think," Bob said, "I thought I was proud of you," as he aimed the gun again.

* * *

The laughter had entirely subsided from the three agents as they closed the final perimeter around the police station parking lot. At the edge of the lot, still out of sight from the street lamp's halo, they paused for a moment to breathe and re-stretch their muscles, knowing that water and chairs and other people (that they could make drive them home) were inside.

Barely ready to move on again, Hotchner began the walk to the front door of the station. Prentiss had collapsed herself on one of the logs that marked the depth of the parking spaces, and Derek seeing her sore attempts to lift herself off the log came to give her a hand.

Once on her feet, the startling blast of a gun rattling the windows from inside the police station shocked her, and she fell back to the log.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I had originally intended for this to be the last chapter of this fic, but realized that doing so would make the chapter twice as long as it is, and probably take me twice as long to write. So, I hope to see you all for the next (and final) chapter.  
As usual, any comments and reviews will be greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

**My Own Backyard**

**Summary:** Part of the team is on a routine interview when something goes awry. Now they've discovered a serial killer that no one knew about, and are intent to find who it is.

**Legality:** I do not own anything Criminal Minds; I am just borrowing the universe and characters to tell a story.

**Author's Note:** Really, very sorry for the extended delay on producing this (finally final) chapter.  
Many thanks for all the wonderful, positive reviews. Also, more thanks to those that added the story to your alerts/favorites.

* * *

Chapter Six

The sound of the blast sent Hotchner, Prentiss, and Morgan into immediate instinct mode, each agent entirely forgetting the exhaustion they had previously been feeling. They drew their weapons and filed into formation, Hotchner leading the other two, creeping to the side of the building where one light shone through a window that was cracked only a couple of inches open.

Quietly, Prentiss crept to the side of the window, craning her neck to get her ear as close to the screen as possible without putting her face in front of the glass itself. The last remaining light over the parking lot flickered out just then, and the vantage point of being able to exist outside the window unseen was silently appreciated by all three agents. From within the room of the police station, Prentiss could hear Ranger Bob's grunts of anger under the sound of Gideon's soothing voice.

"Listen to me, Bob," Gideon was saying, "just put the gun back down."

Morgan gave an inquiring gesture to Prentiss as Hotch watched, his expression tense.

_Is anyone hurt? _Morgan mouthed to her. In return, she shrugged. Craning her neck again, she listened to Bob's muffled reasoning behind the window.

"How y'all gonna take me seriously if I don't scare it into you?" Bob was saying.

"We know, Bob." Reid replied. His voice was louder and clearer than the others, signaling that he was next to the window, and ripe with fear.

"We just want to talk. We gave you our guns, there's no need to keep yours, and certainly no need to go shooting ceilings." Rossi's voice came from just beyond Reid's. He was firm, yet still comforting; this assertiveness was one of his talents.

Prentiss crept back to the two men. "I don't think anyone was shot," she whispered to them, "I think it was supposed to be some kind of warning. They're trying to talk the gun back from Bob now."

They stood in silence for what seemed like an eternity, but what logically could have been only a few seconds.

"Okay," Hotchner told the other two, "Morgan, you and I will move around to the front door. It's just out of view enough that we should be able to sneak in unnoticed. Emily, you stay here at the window. You have your flashlight?" She nodded to confirm, "When you hear that it's clear, shine the light past the wall so we can see it. When we move through the front, I'll shine my light and you go through the back door. He'll notice us first and you should be able to get in just in case he tries to run."

"Hotch," she whispered, "I don't think they know we're out here. I'm pretty sure Reid's closest to the window, think he can handle taking a signal?"

"We'll have to try our chances," Morgan answered, "the kid's not so subtle, but he's possibly the best chance we have of making sure everyone comes out okay."

"Do it, then," Hotchner concluded. "Let's go," he said to Morgan, and the two crept back to the building and under the window, around the corner and out of Prentiss's sight.

"Okay…signal," she thought to herself aloud, "exactly what kind of signal. Probably should've thought this through better."

She craned her neck to allow her ear proximity to the screen again when it dawned on her. Placing her hand at the bottom of the screen, she leaned herself out as far as she could, and just off to the side enough that Bob wouldn't be able to see her. She saw the tense faces of Rossi and JJ then, and the profile of Reid's face. His eyes were closed and his brow creased. He was scared.

Bob's voice rambled on, though it was hard to decipher what he was saying. Most likely, his back was to the window, but he sounded like he was yelling something to the empty police station.

Prentiss quietly, gently, ran her fingernail along the screen, making it vibrate. Reid didn't look up. She tried again, this time louder. He opened his eyes and looked to the top of the window, oblivious. Rolling her eyes, Prentiss flicked the screen. Both Reid's and Rossi's heads snapped to the window as Bob's rant cut off mid sentence.

Panicked, she froze. The hairs on her arm stood straight up just before she realized Bob had only stopped to take a deep breath, and he promptly continued again.

She pointed her flashlight on her face and clicked it. On. Off. Quick as she could. Reid looked startled and gaped, creating a stark contrast to Rossi's immediate look of understanding, and turning his body to keep her in his peripheral vision, while not raising alarm with the ranting Ranger.

Prentiss held up her own gun next to her face, pointed at the stars. She shined the light on her face again, this time including the weapon. _Bob have gun?_ She mouthed to the two men. Rossi put his arm behind his back. She held up one finger and shook her head yes, put up a second finger, and shook her head no. He understood, and stuck out one finger. Then, reaching with his other hand, he turned the kid's head back to the center of the room to keep from rousing suspicion.

Rossi would be her signal. And he was good at it.

He gave a look to someone else in the room. He inclined his head towards Prentiss and then gave a nod to the other person.

"We hear you, Bob," Gideon's kind voice rang softly. "But look at what all your care has done. Your care of the desert led you to kill your own son. Your son, the only thing you had left."

"No!" Bob's voice screamed. "No! He did it to himself! He hurt _Her_! It was his fault!"

"Is that what you have to tell yourself?" He asked of the now sobbing man. "Listen, Bob. Put down the gun before you hurt any of us like you hurt your son." His plea was met only by the choked sobs of the Ranger. "Please, Bob. Don't hurt anyone else." A sob. A choke. Something heavy was dropped to the floor. Rossi turned flicked out a second finger and quickly, Prentiss shone her light to the corner of the building. Another light flashed back.

_Move,_ Rossi mouthed to her.

Inside the station, deflated and defeated, Ranger Bob slouched down into a chair. His enormous shoulders shook and his hand, red from rage-just-passed, was pressed into his face to muffle his sobs. "I didn't want to hurt him," he choked out, "I didn't want to hurt him."

No one was listening anymore. All eyes were focused on the black metal now laying on the ground. All ears echoed the sound of the gun dropping. All lungs finally fully exhaled. Everything visible in the room relaxed to stillness, save for the sobbing man in the chair, the two agents creeping in from the front door, and a third agent creeping in from the back door.

When the three sets of eyes saw the back of Ranger Bob, they stood, arms rigid and ending in firearms instead of hands. "Bob, you need to stand up with your hands on the back of your head," Hotchner said to him.

Ranger Bob looked up startled. Other than that, he made no movement.

Morgan looked over the four agents left in the station. Their eyes looked as though they had fear still in them, and their faces looked as ragged as he felt. Angrily, he shouted, "Now! It's over, Bob!"

Bob looked Morgan right in the eye. "Well," he said, "no shit it's over, son." And he stood to be cuffed before the tears could dry on his cheeks.

* * *

Quarter to midnight and all the agents sat in the make-shift kitchen of the police station. Exhausted and determined, they put on their second pot of coffee and waited for the other officers to arrive before they began the last bit of work on Bob to close the case.

He was locked in the interrogation room, of course. They had cuffed him to the table, just to be sure. They had left him one hand free to allow him its use in continuing to wipe his tears.

JJ sighed and allowed her eyes to roam over the graying floor of the room. "Hey," she said to Prentiss, "weren't you wearing heels earlier?"

"Ugh!" She responded, "Ask Hotch how that happened."

Promptly, Morgan erupted into a fit of laughter, actually clutching his side to further emphasis his ringing "Ha!"

"You know," Prentiss called over his hounding, "you laugh like a complete tool."

This got him going harder, and even a few other team members joined in laughing at the joke they didn't fully understand. Hotchner smiled and chuckled to himself. The roar of the room signaled that all the agents had caught their second wind (or third or forth by this point), and the only thing that could have possibly been louder at that moment was the gunshot that came from the interrogation room.

Silence followed.

Rossi got to the window of the small grey room first, immediately followed by Hotchner. Fresh blood dripped from heavy splatter on the wall behind the metal chair that Bob's body was lifelessly flopped over the back of. His left pant leg had been pulled up to reveal an empty holster tucked behind the dead man's sock, and a small pistol dangled from his limp free hand.

Rossi dropped his head. "We should have known to check his socks," he said to no one in particular. "He even told us to when he checked ours."

The front door of the station opened and two officers entered together. The young townies were greeted by seven tired faces, all of which, had regret in their eyes.

* * *

Somewhere in the distance a bird awoke and began its morning song. The sky over the horizon paled to a blue so pure it almost looked white. Bright yellow beams piqued from beyond the far canyon walls and suddenly the last remaining stars faded behind the bright morning sky. The quiet morning exuded a peaceful quality, disturbed only momentarily by the engines of the jet firing up, before they became white noise lost to the desert.

Weary and smelly and ready for their own beds, the six travelers waited for the stairs of the plane to descend to the ground. Once fully lowered, Pilot Jim appeared from the dark of the plane's interior.

"Yessir," he called down to them, "ain't she a beaut? Fresh out of the factory, this one. Chocked full of this new technology nonsense everyone's nut-so 'bout. I still can't decide if that's a good thing. Anyway, they say she gets better fuel mileage so even the damned hippies can be proud of her. Let's just hope she holds her engines this time, eh?" He chuckled at his own joke and waved to the agents to come aboard. Stiffly, they accepted.

Once it was Morgan's turn to climb up, he turned back to see only Reid and Gideon standing outside the plane.

"You know," Reid was yelling over the engine noise to his mentor, "maybe you could…could come visit us some time? Let us all know what you're up to. In person, I mean. I mean, you're an old friend and all and with the work we do…well, statistically, morale-"

"Spencer," Gideon yelled back to quiet the young agent, "I knew you'd ask me that. Here." He handed Reid a folded piece of paper. "My answer is in there." He smiled at the boy then, and waved goodbye to Morgan. "You don't actually need me anymore, Spencer." He assured the boy. "Just…know that."

And then he turned, and he walked away.

"C'mon, kid," Morgan said to Reid. "Let's go home."

The two climbed into the plane, which looked remarkably the same on the inside as the old, with the addition of a fair-sized television monitor holding the beaming face of one Penelope Garcia.

"There's my hunk-a hunk-a burning love," she said as they entered.

"Hi, baby girl," Morgan said into the dot under the screen that he supposed to be the mic. Or camera. Whatever.

"Oh," she said, "Derek, you're there too? I just thought it was young Spencer I was hitting on."

"What?" Reid asked, completely caught off guard and flabbergasted by the statement.

"Good job, Spence," JJ grinned, "now you've given her the satisfaction of knowing how to shock you."

"Nonsense!" Screen-Garcia smiled. "Okay, maybe some sense. Well, now that I know all my babies are safe and coming home, I'm going to sign off so your plane can take off. Take care, my lovelies." The screen went dark and the team all settled into their soft seats, watching out the windows as the desert sand swirled and danced, until it became ground beneath the clouds.

"Hey kid," Morgan softly spoke to Reid, "what did Gideon say? About, coming to visit?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly, pulling the folded paper from the confines of his pocket. He glanced it over with the speed that only he had. Aloud, he read:

"…_If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again,__  
I won't look any further than my own back yard.__  
Because if it isn't there,  
I never really lost it to begin with."_  
-The Wizard of Oz

Thoughtfully, Morgan stared out his window. "Well," he said, "at least his cryptic nature still has flare."

* * *

The sun was rising even higher, and it was time to get to the cool of their home before it got too warm on the desert sand.

In the distance of the sky, they could just barely make out the giant bird leaving the sands behind. Sticking their noses in the air, they turned towards the plane one last time. So many holes. So many holes dug in the sand, revealing the human carcasses and making the small valley pungent with the scent of death.

The coyotes would not be returning to this valley for at least a full moon's cycle. None of the creatures of the desert would. Instead, they would allow the sands to heal and swallow the thick scent back into the core of the earth. The desert would take that back, and when she had finished, she would allow the brush to grow fuller; taking the death to make the life. And so the two coyotes bowed their heads one more time to the valley, and ran off to their home.

Such is the way of the desert.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thank you again to everyone who favorited, added to your alerts, commented on, or even just read this story. I'm hoping it was a fairly decent attempt at a first Criminal Minds fic. Any other comments would be greatly appreciated!  
If you're at all curious, I do have plans in the works for another CM fic, so, I really hope you all come back to read that one too. Thank you again!

_~Fin._


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